A Twisted Ladder (54 page)

Marc’s face grew very dark. He took a step toward Emily, and she recoiled. Suddenly, the lights went out. Emily screamed.

“No,” Madeleine whispered.

She heard Marc say, “I can make the lights go out without even flipping a switch.”

Through the tunnel, the television blinked to life. A KJUN TV-10 journalist was talking about a meth lab bust in LaFourche. In the greenish light of the television, Madeleine could see Marc and Emily facing each other. Emily’s hands were clasped over her middle.

Marc said, “I can turn on a TV and a radio, too. I can make a phone call without a telephone.”

The radio came on, a metal band competing with the newscaster on the television.

Marc shouted, “Now you leave! You leave Louisiana, and you don’t tell me where you’re going. In fact, don’t tell anyone in my family. And you pray to God we can’t find you.”

Severin rose to her feet. “Get up.”

Madeleine obeyed, numb. Severin was climbing up over a network of roots and Madeleine climbed after her. The sound of Marc’s radio went silent, and then the television. Emily was weeping. The light came on again in Marc’s tunnel, but it was much more distant now, only shreds of light far below. Madeleine heard the sound of car keys being snatched from a table, and then a door slam. She climbed. Dirt and wood stung her torn hands. As in the swamp, a halo of light surrounded Severin as she led Madeleine up, up, and then they were scaling a tree. It didn’t feel as though she were climbing it. She was weightless, and the upward movement was effortless, the way an ant may climb a tree. She heard the storm. Saw her own body. Climbed inside. It was cold.

MADELEINE OPENED HER EYES
. Rain. Severin.

“Get up,” Severin said. “You’ll die up here.”

The little girl was hovering above, scorning gravity in her sideways position in the tree. Her hair was wet and oily, her skin glowing silver.

“Go away,” Madeleine slurred.

She felt so groggy it seemed that the tree wanted to absorb her into its heart. The pulling sleep was warm, intoxicating.

Severin snarled, and then Madeleine felt razor-sharp fingernails slice into her ear.

Madeleine jerked and sat up. She realized she’d been slumped atop Anita’s body.

Severin scrabbled along the underside of the branch and leapt to the ground. She twisted her head and looked up.

Madeleine tumbled out of the tree, her chilled and bleeding fingers unable to close around the branches, and plopped to the earth below. Knees were stiff and slow to react. Madeleine rolled on wet leaves. Severin began to walk into the darkness with the ring of light around her. Madeleine staggered to her feet and followed stiffly.

They were walking along the ridge of one of the
cheniers
. She felt she could close her eyes and follow Severin along the ridge. Could even sleep and still be able to follow. She kept her eyes open, if only to deny credibility to what was happening. Shells crunched beneath her feet and she wondered how often floodwaters reached this height. Her muscles loosened. She was able to move more fluidly. Without having to carry Anita, she felt featherlight, and here on the high ground there were fewer obstructions. The oaks provided vast canopies to slow the rain and keep the ground clear of scrub. She began to harbor hope that she might make it the entire way after all.

The oaks fell away to open fields, and Madeleine was no longer protected from rain by a canopy of trees. The wind whipped at her back and stung her lacerated body, and she hunched forward with her arms folded tightly across her chest. So cold.

Finally, through the veil of rain, she could see lights. A house.

BAYOU BLACK, 2009

T
HEY WERE ABSOLUTE TROOPERS
, that poor, bewildered family who’d been the first people Madeleine came upon when she emerged from the woods in the dark of morning. They’d called the police and allowed her into their home though she must have looked a fright. When Sheriff Cavanaugh arrived a short while later, he insisted on driving her to the hospital himself, and on the way she told him all that had happened. She was careful, however, to leave Severin out of it.

“Did you see Zenon attack the girl?” Cavanaugh asked.

Madeleine shook her head. “When I found her, she was already dead.”

“He followed you in the storm?”

“Yes. Well, I’m pretty sure it was him. Someone was behind me in a boat, but of course I couldn’t see his face.”

“Would you recognize the boat that followed you?”

She nodded. “Yeah, well actually, I saw the boat clearly when I was going in and out of the cove, but once it started to follow me, all I could see was the spotlight.” She paused. “It was so dark, and with the rain . . .” She took a breath. “But yeah, I’d recognize it if I saw it again.”

She was starting to feel uneasy. What if they found no proof of what Zenon had done?

Sheriff Cavanaugh patted her arm. “Don’t worry, darlin. We’ll get that sumbitch.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“My boys are looking for him now. His truck’s at his place, but he ain’t there.”

“Have you found his trawler?”

Sheriff shook his head. “It ain’t docked anywhere so far as we can tell, but until this storm lets up, we won’t be able to really look.”

Once in the emergency room, the nurse told her to change into a hospital gown. She was splotched with blood, dirt, and the occasional leech. The doctor found she was suffering multiple lacerations, a broken clavicle, a concussion, and, incredibly: dehydration.

The nurse and doctor violated her with needles and sutures and the most uncomfortable shower of her life. None of it mattered, though; she fell asleep while they were still stitching her knees.

DADDY WAS GONE AGAIN.
Somewhere around the time Madeleine had been pulling Anita’s body from the swamp, there’d been some kind of screw-up on the psych ward at Tulane, and they’d let him out. He disappeared. Considering his going to ground among the homeless, he likely didn’t even know what had happened to her.

The doctor had wanted Madeleine to stay overnight, but he’d released her when Ethan showed up to take her home. Sam had come along too, and bless her, she’d brought some fresh clothes. The police had collected Madeleine’s belongings right down to the skivvies. They’d needed to send them to the lab for testing since they’d neither found Zenon nor recovered Anita’s body by the time Madeleine had left the hospital.

Sheriff Cavanaugh had phoned her as a courtesy. “That storm moved through and they’s another one come up right behind it, and it’s flooding pretty good. We can’t get anyone out there to recover that body just yet.”

“I see,” Madeleine had said, trying not to acknowledge the twist in her stomach.

“We goin out first light tomorrow morning though. Skinny little thing like you can make it with no help, my boys damn sure better get their asses out there and find her, storm or no storm.”

On the drive back, Ethan wouldn’t let go of her hand.

“We were so worried,” he kept saying, and she felt like a fraud.

She’d told him only half of what happened. The same story she’d told the sheriff: a recount of surface events. No reference to the world beyond the veneer, where Severin had drawn her into the briar.

Madeleine would. She’d tell him. Just not now.

She checked the passenger’s side mirror. Her truck followed back there, but she couldn’t see Sam behind the wheel through the rain. Only the headlights. Couldn’t see Severin, either. At least not at the moment.

Madeleine unfolded the paper in her lap, a receipt listing her personal effects which were now in the custody of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Department. Nothing special. Just an inventory of her clothing, garment by garment, and whatever items had been in her pockets:

One ball point pen
(she’d used it to sign the listing agreement with Nida);

5.87 in cash;

One tube lip balm
;

But her gaze settled on the last item on the list, the one thing she hadn’t been carrying when she’d first set off into the bayou:

One gold pocket watch
.